Eagle114th

Hello everyone, I am working on Strike Fighter 2 (simulation) big mod project. I am still looking for excellent pictures and videos of MiG-17, 19, and 21 wing vortex when performing hard-turning. As always, when it is difficult for me to find a clear picture or videos of specific aircraft situation, the request is posted here. If anyone has better pictures or videos, please share them here. As always, thank you, everyone for the support. Cheers

Hello everyone, I need help with this problems. After implementing LandingLight to F-4B and started in a night mission, I noticed two things: 1) The main light keep flashing until I change to "non-flashing" nav light mode. Is that normal? 2) The runway does not get full light, there are section that goes dark while other section get shined. Here is screenshot: Here is the codes: I am still puzzled about this problem. If anyone know the solve, please let me know. Cheers

Finally managed to add light to the front landing gear while tweaked the engine node further. However, I am facing problem with it at the moment. I will make a new post about it. At once when the light problem is solved, then beta release for F-4B with all new features will be posted here. If the feedback are positive, I will implement it on the rest of F-4s in SF2 and will move on to A-1s and A-4s next. Cheers!

Thank you for giving me an idea. I used GIMP to erase the texture, saved it, and placed it in each skin folder. Works perfectly! The 2D texture engine disappeared. Now it looks much better with 3D effects.

BINGO! The inner afterburner is finally spot on!

This is very interesting! I managed to get "military" thrust engine node animation running. In my opinion, it looks better than the non-existence node. When you land and turn off the engine, the node animation will disappear. I am going to make it even more transparent so you can barely see it. For now, this is the result. Please note that the left jet engine has military thrust node animation while the right jet engine doesn't.

I am improving the afterburner further with more tweaks and managed to get the afterburner to have more realistic light effects at night. No more afterburner acting like a flashlight anymore.

Hello everyone, I am still puzzled about how to remove or disable 2D afterburner tga in SF2 aircraft. I am still working on finding a way. The reason why I want to disable them is that I am replacing 2D texture with a 3D afterburner node. I have a lot of ideas for military thrust and afterburner inside the engine nozzle, to give it immersive feelings. The advice is appreciated, as always. Eagle114th

Hello everyone, I updated the thread title to SFCE. The reason why the name is Strike Fighter Community Expansion is that this mod uses various mods made by authors from CombatAce. This mod is not only for my Saad - Zafir project. It is also for the community to use freely too! What you will see in SFCE: However, SFCE, in another hand, does NOT add any new add-on plane to SF2. The reason of this: With SFCE, anyone can use it as base to add any mods to it, build their own mod pack on top of it, or import big mod packs and upgrade it to work with SFCE. LINK to SFCE Beta 1.2a: https://www.mediafire.com/file/8s9f09dp35iwyjb/SFCE_v1.2a.7z/file I am able to release the beta now, it is all thanks to CombatAce community for the supports and pictures needed for the projects, including Ravenclaw_007, Wrench, Nightshade/PR, Menrva, Daddyplanes, and Trotski00 for helping me with advice, pictures/videos references, modding, and aircraft information and Coupi for testing and fixing the sounds problems in F-4s ini files. I especially want to thank to all authors of mods for giving me the permissions to use various mods for this project. If there is any names I forgot to mention here, please let me know. I will add your names here asap. My apologies. this beta version Includes changes to all A-1s, A-4s, and F-4s series. A-6 is being worked on now. The feedback will be always helpful to improve this mod even further. Please let me know if you see any errors with the loadout, sounds, and other features. BUGS / ISSUES: 1) I am still puzzled by these bugs. When using F-4s and turning the navigation light on, as you start rolling down the runway, the light won't cover the whole runway. There are sections that blackout the light area. If any of you know how to solve it, please let me know. If any of you know or suggest additional mods I am not aware of that improves TW aircraft, please let me know too. 2) There is one issue in Egyptian Mirage 5SDE's loadout.ini. BFT is not working in loadout.ini, BUT you still will be able to have 4 of bombs loaded instead of having total 8 bombs with BFT automatically. At least BFT still works well and you can manually load them in loadout. If any of you know how to fix this, please let me know and I will happily update SFCE with it ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello everyone, I have to put the project on halt for now. The life situation suddenly changed. My wife is in hospital and I am doing everything to take care of the situation. It is the hardest time in my life. I need to step away from CombatAce for time being until the situation improves. I will be back someday. Eagle114th

Everyone, THANK YOU! I didn't realize there is actually coordination at bottom of the software window! I was using LOD viewer earlier. This will save me A LOT of time. Cheers!

Hello everyone, I am back to modding SF2 slowly. I am currently working on pushing to SF2 limitation with effects (Vortex, afterburner, and other kinds of effects). There is one thing that got me puzzled. What is the quickest way to find specific coordination (X, Y, Z) to place an effect on certain parts of aircraft? For now, I am doing it through trials and errors by re-starting SF2, seeing where the effect is, then shutting SF2, re-edit the notepad, then repeating the steps. Therefore is why I am hoping that someone can share the shortcuts. Thank you and cheers! Eagle114th

That is noted. I will make sure to move my SF2 modded folders out of the way before running SF2. Then move them back and replace default files. Thank you for the warning. Looks like I may have to reinstall KAW mod and that won't take that long. Cheers

I see. if you do not want to reinstall mods when moving to the new computer or laptop, you can let SF2 run .exe and create option.ini first. Then change option.ini to point to the location of your modded SF2. Then it will work. That way you do not have to re-install mods from scratch again.

I figured out how to get it working. In order to fix the black screen, I had to do this: - Run any modded SF2 for the first time WITHOUT modifying saved files (option.ini) for the first time. - After running it for the first time, I modified the option to point the location of modded SF2 folder to an external SSD where all SF2 installation are. Now I am able to fly modded SF2 without problems. When you move to the new computer or laptop, you had to run .exe for the first time before changing option.ini. If not, you might get black screen like I did. Cheers

Hello everyone, I recently got a new gaming laptop to replace my broken, aging laptop. This one comes with Windows 11 preinstalled. Have anyone solved the problems with the black screen when starting modded SF2? When I launched SF2 (Non-modded), the main menu was loaded. However, if I run SF2 with mods, it gets stuck in the black screen after the splash screen. I am using the 12th intel CPU with RTX 3080Ti. I have installed the latest driver. Any advice is appreciated. Cheers

Hello everyone, This is the first time I am writing a letter to the people and the communities that I enjoyed being part of throughout my life. I want to write this before anything may happen to my vision. I went to the eye doctor, and he told me that I have between 10 to 20 years before I might go blind. As you can imagine a big shock for me. I decided to just quickly write a story about my life. That way I can have no regrets. As you can see, what I have is known as Usher Syndrome, which led to the loss of my part vision and deafness. Hence, I am deaf with low vision. I am also legally deafblind since I can’t see well in dark. So many challenges have been achieved throughout my life. When I was a young boy, I had two big dreams; To go to Japan and to be a Navy fighter pilot. Obviously, I could not be a Navy fighter pilot and that is where simulation comes in. Initially, it was found out that I am deaf during baby age, but my vision situation wasn’t found out until very much later in my life at the age of 16. It was a big shock for me. I was even told that I am going blind eventually as soon as I reach adulthood (the 20s to 30s of the age). You can imagine how scared I was, thinking my life was in ruin. My world was turned upside. My father always taught me to dream big, no matter what the situation. I had two choices: To live for my dream and try again or to give up and live in a dark world. I chose the first one and decided to try anyway. This led me to achieved what was considered impossible. There were always challenges to face, without any breaks in between. In the educational world, when I was in an elementary school, they treated me like I wasn’t smart because of my deafness. They refused to give me an equal opportunity of education as other children. Fortunately, the teacher told my parent about it and my parent fought the hardest for my right to have an education like everyone else. When I was transferred to another school, I was the only deaf boy in the entire school. It was a scary world. Decided to give it a try and made a few friends, that was when I started teaching sign language for the first time (At age of 9). Having never given up, I had to re-learn the 4th grade to the previous grade in one year to catch up with everyone and it was achieved. Into the High school, never given up, kept trying on and made it to graduate my high school. During high school, even with my limited vision, I joined the swimming team, a tennis game (Oh my god, I HATE THAT game. It was such pain trying to spot fast-moving balls), slotput / disc throw, and Tae kwon Do. And for my hobby at home, I could never stop flying ancient simulations. It was Jane’s series simulation! Even though I could not be real navy fighter pilot, simulation was perfect for me. I loved learning about various military aircraft and fly them virtually. When I got to university, I go through many challenges again. It was a socializing challenge, as well as learning subjects. What doesn’t help was being burnt out from too many studies and hard work. I gave up from time to time but tried again. I had good and not good teachers. I had many ups and downs. Made many mistakes and learned from them. There were so many things I wanted to do but did not have the courage to do because of busy trying to study and pass classes. Here were the big dreams I wanted to do throughout my life: - Successfully living and working in awesome company in Japan - Marry a wonderful woman - Write the fictional books for simulation or game - Write the stories for manga - Have my own gaming development company - Live a happy life without losing my vision After changing my major from aeronautical engineering to computer science, it has taken me 10 years to finish university. Even though it took me that long to finish, I still achieved getting a degree in computer science. Right after the university, did my best to look for the jobs, and got declined due to my sensory disabilities. Bless my parent, they sent me to Japan as my graduation gift. That was the best gift in my life. Took the opportunity to go to Japan for the first time. It was a challenging and fun journey going through Tokyo alone most of the time. I stayed in an apartment for 2 and half months. I was lucky to be able to figure out how to communicate with the apartment company. For your information, I do not have the ability to speak well. I use body language and gesture to communicate with people who do not know any sign language. My primary sign language is ASL (American Sign Language). Right now, I can read some Japanese (basic) and can hold the communication in JSL (Japanese Sign Language). After 3 months of my stay in Japan and returning to the USA, it feels like I was stuck. Nowhere to go because companies often do not give me an opportunity to work for them, even though I hunted for many jobs. I still was fortunate enough to work for my family’s business which gave me a lot of experience. (My family is awesome! They always have my back!) Then comes the 2nd opportunity for me to go back to Japan for 2 months. After that, I decided I am going to try and make a difference in my experience, despite that I couldn’t get jobs. I never forget that day when I was staying in Japan twice as a tourist. I would always keep that experience inside my mind and heart. Seeing people walking around happily, seeing the tall buildings, and seeing myself being successful there. I vowed to make it happen someday. Fortunately, I bumped into a new friend of mine in America. She gave me an opportunity to work as a volunteer for a non-profit organization. I decided to give it a try. 3 years later, I was contacted by a company in Tokyo with a job offer of teaching ASL. Even though it wasn’t related to gaming development or computer-related jobs, I decided to give it a try because it is what will lead me to the next steps toward successfully living in Japan. I have been teaching sign language since I was 9, so I had enough experience to do my best there. To my surprise, working in Tokyo was the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. So many challenges and unexcepted things happening that require me to put a lot of effort into it. Having gone through the sleepless nights, I worked very hard for 2 years straight. Their ways of culture in the work are very different from America for sure! After my contract ended, I was only given 3 months to find a new job before my VISA no longer become valid. Worked very hard looking for the jobs and have gone through various interviews. To my surprise, unlike before, I got a lot of interviews for computer-related jobs! Unfortunately, they told me they found someone else with more experience than me. The closest one I got the job was from an apple company. With the time running out and the unknown of the future, I would still never give up envisioning myself being successful. Thank to my wonderful friend who owns a tavern, they gave me a part-time job as a website developer and interpreter (ASL to JSL). Did my best there and that is when I met a wonderful woman of my life too. With the coronavirus going on, a lot of companies started closing and my journey to find a full-time job in computer-related jobs did not yet happen. After being married to my wonderful woman and moving to Fukushima from Tokyo, continued to do my best with the jobs hunting, got various interviews, and then got declined many times again. With that, decided to try something new. Started doing graphic work as a hobby which led me into creating many things such as menus, short video promotions, and other kinds of graphic works for fun. It made me happy. Then you can guess, it led me into making the mods for SF2. One of them is a new screen/menu for SF2 inspired by Jane’s Fighter Anthology! And at the same time, one of my old dreams is being realized when I started writing a book about the fictional nations (Saad / Zafir) for SF2. That gave me so many joys! Many new skills were developed from it which I believe would be very helpful for the computer-related jobs too! My wife and I made the big goal of moving back to Tokyo someday and then the news hit me a few days ago. The eye doctor told me that I might go blind in 10 to 20 years. That was a huge punch to my stomach, and I felt like the world crumpled around me temporarily and thanks to my wife, she got me pulling myself back together. It wasn’t the first time I experienced this. Back there during my high school time, when I was told that I might go blind by my 20s or 30s, it never happened. I did not believe I would go blind and stayed with the belief I would still be able to preserve my vision. That still happened to this very day. I am going to continue staying with that kind of hope. A miracle can happen. However, as I said, just in case, if anything happens to my vision, I am happy I got this out of my chest and wanted to share with the community and the world about my life challenges. Thank you everyone for my wonderful experiences of simulation and modding. I will continue to work on SFAW mods slowly through time. Have to make to rest my eyes every day too. Cheers

I am happy this post is created, so we community can give it a try! If anyone dont' mind, can you share your nvidia panel settings with us too? That way we can exchange the settings and experiment which works the best for us with the Nvidia video card. Cheers!

I purposely copied IL-2 1946 Nvidia setting as an example to explain what I was trying to do here. I am not using the Il-2 1946 Nvidia setting for SF2. However, I am now working on configuring my own version for SF2. I agree with you that Antialiasing is a MUST have for SF2. Cheers

Thank you for the reply. What I was meant to ask is the specific settings (configuration) for Nvidia panel. For example, triple buffering, AA, CPU Cuba, etc. When I tweaked IL-2 1946, I followed this guide as an example: I am asking for SF2 version from the community here who have tweaked it to work the best way with SF2.

Hello everyone, My goal is to fully use RTX 3080Ti in my new gaming laptop as much as possible for SF2, even though it is an old simulation. I tweaked the settings in the Nvidia panel for Il-2 1946. I want to do the same thing for SF2. So to anyone here who has successfully configured Nvidia panel settings for SF2, may I ask for the configuration here? It can be used here as a reference for us to tweak our Nvidia panel. I appreciate any help you can provide. Cheers

Hello everyone! Just to let everyone know about the status of the project. I am currently still working on the aircraft, vehicle, and ships/boat sets of the list for all Saad / Zafir military branches. It is A LOT of work and requires a lot of research. So far, I have completed the list for the following nations' military: - ROSAF - ROSN (Aviation - ROSA (Aviation - ROSA (Vehicle) - ROSCG (Aviation - RZAF - RZN (Aviation) - RZA (Aviation - RZA (Vehicle) ROSN and RZN ships/boat lists are being worked on. When they are done, I will work on the British Saad, Ottoman-Qua, and Qua next. They will require far less work since they have much fewer contents than modern Saad and Zafir. They are there as a reference for any simulation. It doesn't mean they must be in SF2. If any modelers are interested in making models for SFAW, that would be great! Doing a lot of research opened my eyes to bigger military aircraft and vehicles I had not seen before! It is excellent learning every day. Please note that the list is being adjusted over time based on the discussion and feedback. It is tied to the stories and histories from the book as well. When the list sets are completed, I am moving on to prepare SF2 root folders for Saad and Zafir. It will have newly updated nations, squadron, and other .ini files tweaks. It will be designed for two eras (The 1920s to WWII and the Post-War - 1990s). After that, I am more focused on the post-war to 1990s era when I got to work on adding aircraft and other items to SF2. SFAW team members are free to work on either the 1920s to 1940s (WWII) or 1940s (The post-war) to 1990s era they wish to do. Anyone interested in joining the SFAW team, please let me know. Feel free to post here or PM me. Cheers!

Since FE2 and SF2 uses the same engine, yes it is possible. We intend to use FE2 for WWI scenario. However, we are using SF2 for interwar - WWII and post war - 1990s era though.

Hello everyone! I managed to change the ways of sharing the information and stories with the community in more compact methods. There are .pdf version with completed mini-books related to Saad and Zafir. You can find them directly at this link: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/97239-mod-project-strike-fighter-alternative-world-sfaw/?tab=comments#comment-795255 Or you can scroll up and see the large texts stating "Saad and Zafir history and timelines mini-books". However, Here is a direct link to the rest of Zafir history: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZniiDGfyito-lrZmmgfgX0SOvEGLKWvT/view?usp=sharing I hope everyone enjoy the mini-bokos. Cheers!

Hello everyone! I am very pleased to see Trotski00 here! It is great seeing you here and thank you for the comments. You are the finest teammate and teacher. I learned a lot from you and contiune to learn new things everyday. Daddyairplanes, I humbly appreciate your feedback. I agree with both Trotski00 and Daddyairplanes, having a tactical nuclear would be too much problemic in the world of Zafir. I am going to replace tactical nuclear warhead SCUD to chemical warhead version of SCUD. Because even with that, having SCUD is a nightmare situation for SAAD and other countries. Hence, SCUD crisis. This forces Saad and Israel to team up to go on a classified operation to destroy the SCUDS, then force Zafir to sign treaty to never obtain SCUD ever again. It makes more sense this way. I am going to adjust the SCUD situation in both Saad and Zafir mini-book and will re-upload updated history of Saad above. I am blessed ot see the community showing the interests inour projects. Even though it is a slow project, like Trotski00 said, we do it with our passions and love for it. It is the hobby. As soon the Saad histiry is updated, I will start sharing the history of Zafir. UPDATE: Saad history is updated with Zafir using the chemical warheads version of SCUD. Zafir's version of mini-book si being updated too. As always, the feedback are helpful. Cheer!

May I ask, do you plan on releasing this skin? I want to download it and add to my SF2 collection. I am big fans of 'what if' mods. Cheers